February 8, 2022

Saw Sparks in concert at the Disney Concert Hall last night. I was wondering whether Edgar Wright might be there, and as my husband ascended the escalator up from the parking garage, there he was. Looking just like Edgar Wright. The Disney Concert Hall is in the round, sort of, with a smaller number of seats behind the stage. That's where we were. We had a clear view of the people in the audience from there, and Wright was pretty close to the stage. It was a bummer to not see Sparks' faces as much as we could have, but on the other hand, I got to watch a director I idolize go full fan-boy on a band he idolizes. So that was good. By the end of the concert, people were on their feet and dancing, and it felt like being in a big party, a big group. I haven't had that feeling for a long time because of the pandemic, and it really is a good feeling. A different feeling, something all to itself.  

Anyway, MLog time. 

FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL

1994

Directed by: Mike Newell

Written by: Richard Curtis

Watched: 2/4/22

Charles and his single friends attend wedding after wedding as their social circle gets married off. Charles has a legion of ex-girlfriends chasing him around. But one wedding he meets Carrie, an American, and they sleep together. She returns to America shortly thereafter. They see each other again months later, and Charles is excited to continue their dalliance, but he learns that she’s engaged. The two sleep together anyway. (She figures she’ll be faithful once she’s married.) Carrie talks about all the men she’s slept with – Charles was number 32, the total being 33. If they had called one another in the in between time, maybe they would have gotten together. Charles even helps her pick out her wedding dress. He confesses his love for her, kind of, but ends up retracting it as stupid. Fiona, Charles’ friend, has been in love with him since they met. He’s sympathetic to her feelings but doesn’t reciprocate. (That’s how Wikipedia put it, and I agree.) At Carrie’s wedding, Charles’ friend Gareth (of the good vests), dies of a heart attack. He’s the one, at a previous wedding, who laughed and laughed when the rich awkward friend gave a horrendous best man speech. It’s his funeral in the title. Gareth’s lover Matthew gives his eulogy. He recites a poem by W.H. Auden. I’ll put it here: 

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead

Scribbling on the sky the message ‘He is Dead’.

Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,

Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,

My working week and my Sunday rest,

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;

For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Jesus. Charles and Tom (the rich friend) talk afterwards. Tom wants to get married. He doesn’t think he’ll be struck by a thunderbolt or experience love at first sight. He kind of wants Miss Good-Enough. Someone to be happy and comfortable with. Charles seems to take this attitude to heart. The next and last wedding is his. We learn that he’s marrying one of his ex-girlfriends – a particularly harried one. Fiona is moving on. She’s decided to find someone who actually fancies her. Scarlett, Charles’ flat mate, has a boyfriend. Tom experiences love at first sight after all. And Carrie arrives. She and her husband are getting a divorce. Charles’ brother helps him stop the wedding mid-ceremony. Charles’ bride punches him in the face. Charles and Carrie end up together, although they don’t get married. The rest of the friends land in their various places and all seem happy. 

I was confused going into this movie because I thought Julia Roberts was going to show up. I saw a clip in my SMC class that had Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts and a few odd-ball friends around a dinner table. It seemed like this movie. I was thinking, Okay so Carrie breaks his heart and Julia Roberts comes in to repair it. I think that movie is Notting Hill. Richard Curtis, the writer of this movie, also wrote Notting Hill, and he wrote and directed Love Actually. There are similarities there – the romantic comedy where the sweetness is cut by the messiness of actual relationships. Unrequited love, unruly passions, people dying and getting old, traditions not working for certain individuals, just the fact of being quirky or ugly or otherwise unfit. The funeral part of the movie was the best. In general, I liked the parts that were about the friends – like when they all go to Tom’s castle after a wedding. (We don’t see it because Charles doesn’t join them, but I like to think of them all hanging out in those 137 rooms.) Curtis is able to pack a bunch more emotions into his romances. He’s able to use ugliness to enhance the beauty. I think it was bold to write Carrie the way he did. First, she’s an American and who likes them? Second, she’s slept with a lot of people – a trait considered undesirable, surely, by lots of people in Charles’ situation. And third, she cheats on her fiancé with Charles, and the filmmakers still trust that the audience will like and root for her. She still gets to be the object of Charles’ desire, even though she has a whole life and past of her own. That’s pretty cool. 

Rating: ★★★1/2